Want input on local roads? Meet locally

Friday

Nov 1, 2013 at 12:01 AM

The French Broad Metropolitan Planning Organization, which oversees regional transportation planning, held a meeting Wednesday to get public input on plans to widen Interstate 26 and other road improvements in Henderson County. So you would think they held the meeting in Hendersonville, right?

The French Broad Metropolitan Planning Organization, which oversees regional transportation planning, held a meeting Wednesday to get public input on plans to widen Interstate 26 and other road improvements in Henderson County. So you would think they held the meeting in Hendersonville, right?No, the MPO held a “public input session” on the long-awaited I-26 widening and other projects in Asheville’s Pack Memorial Library. The fact that planners held the meeting more than 25 miles from Hendersonville, and convened it from 4 to 6 p.m. when many folks are working, begs the question as to just how much public input they really wanted.The purpose of the meeting was to allow people to comment on amendments to the N.C. Department of Transportation’s Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP), including one that makes widening I-26 the highest priority among projects slated for Henderson County.Other high-priority projects identified in the plan include building a four-lane expressway called the Balfour Parkway from N.C. Highway 191 to U.S. Highway 64, widening Howard Gap Road to four lanes from Upward Road to U.S. Highway 25, and constructing a three-lane connector on White Street from U.S. Highway 25 Business to Kanuga Road.Even though widening I-26 is considered the top priority among local road needs, construction is not scheduled to start on the project until 2020.But at least there is a schedule, a big improvement from a decade ago when an earlier version of the project was scuttled after a lawsuit by environmental groups. DOT had to go back to the drawing board after a federal judge found the agency had wrongly planned to start widening I-26 to six lanes in Henderson County without fully considering all the impacts of the inevitable need to widen the interstate all the way to Interstate 40 in Asheville.Now, at long last, DOT officials are moving — slowly — toward widening all 22.6 miles from Upward Road to I-40. This is how the project should have been planned in the first place since the original plan to proceed with six lanes in Henderson County would have created a bottleneck in Southern Buncombe County. As anyone who travels I-26 knows, the section north (west) of N.C. 280 is already prone to ugly traffic jams that sometimes stretch for miles.There are many reasons for this section frequently becoming a slow-rolling parking lot, including ramps that are too short and bridges that are too narrow. But the main reason is traffic that frequently is too heavy for a four-lane highway, resulting in what DOT calls an “F” level of service during peak travel times. Traffic volume now averages almost 72,000 vehicles per day and is projected to increase to 90,500 vehicles per day by 2040.To its credit, the last time DOT held a meeting on plans for I-26 back in January, that meeting was held at the WNC Agricultural Center in Fletcher. It’s great that the MPO has decided to make widening I-26 a top priority. If it truly wants to get input from Henderson County residents at future meetings, though, it should hold those meetings in Henderson County.